Holly Cairns - 'Sinn Fein policies aren't left wing'

So a wealth tax on €1m. How do you define that? Your house, what you have in the bank, the value of your pension, like say you were a TD?

I think some of the professional backgrounds of politicians benefit from the current setup, which is a factor in it continuing.

Public servants have a defined benefit pension, the value of which is dependent on how long you live. But women live longer than men, so a retired female primary school headmistress could be over the limit, but a headmaster would not. Such a low limit as €1m would open a complete can of worms.

Great, that's one thing I can agree with, faster processing of AS.

Our target should be the 24hrs managed by the Swiss, although one to two weeks may be more realistic.

AS can work after six months, so if this is achieved, no AS should ever get near the labour market.

At least everyone can agree that quicker processing times is what is needed urgently. What frustrates me the most is just how lax the whole immigration system is, from when people arrive to processing. Its madness to think that when someone claims Asylum, whether they have documentation or no documentation is that they are allowed in and are then free to roam the country and in 6 months free to get work, you have to ask yourself what is the point of having a system if all some has to do is arrive in the country. I have more respect for those who come here illegally to work and don't bother going the asylum route and just get a job and look after themselves, than those chancing their arms.

We really need to tighten up how asylum seekers are housed when they come and what they and can't do, they way I look at it is, if you are waiting on being processed then you are neither in or out of the country but in a holding zone and therefore should not be allowed roam the country or seek employment till the process is finished.

When the Soc Dems were formed by Roisin Shortall, Catherine Murphy and to a lesser extent Stephen Donnelly, I was delighted. We'd seen Roisin Shortall stand up to James O'Reilly and FG and their crony ways and I thought I was going to get a party that I could vote but how wrong was I. Very disappointed in the direction the Soc Dems have gone with the virtue signalling, very off putting, especially with the likes of Cairns, Gannon and a few others, all they need is AO'R to join them and they will be complete.

Holly like all TDs receive a basic salary of €117,113 She also has extremely generous holidays, and other benefits like maternity care which are much more generous than most other countries.

If she says in the Dail about being from the first generation that's less well off than her parents, I do not think so. I remember the 1980s well. No central heating in many houses. No takeaway coffees @ 4 quid a go. Our airports were only a small fraction as busy: nobody going off for stag or hen weekends abroad etc. Cars very basic: I remember having a car in the 1980s without a radio. Phoning long distance or foreign phone calls was very very expensive. Very few restaurants in Ireland: most people could not afford to eat out. The salary of the prime minister of Spain is €90,000 per year, and I'm sure he does a lot more than Holly Cairns, and has a lot more responsibility 24/7. If Holly K was a true socialist she would refuse most of her salary or give it to charity.

I'm a very similar age to Holly and have a significantly better quality of life than my parents when they were my age. Neither had to money to go to university, they never went on a holiday outside of the UK and Ireland, honeymooned in Ireland, varnished the concrete floor in their house when they moved in because they didn't have money to floor the place, never had any car newer than about 5 years old. Growing up as a child in the 90s, eating out was rare, remember having catering done by family members at home for my communion etc. We also never really ate steak at home when I was a child, it was too expensive.

My parents also experienced 18% interest rates on their mortgage in the late 80s.

Access to housing was a little easier but not really more affordable. The quality of housing was vastly different too.

In my view most of Ireland’s problems are created by a distorted and often manipulated property market - absolutely everything comes down to insane property prices, lack of availability and systems that seem designed for facilitate NIMBYism and have little to do with “planning.”

It’s contributed to a huge social divide between those who’ve access to capital in the sense of housing and those who don’t not and it’s far more than a general wealth thing. It’s very specific and it’s supported by a large % of the electorate who enjoy their ever increasing paper wealth.

You also see it with the total inability / unwillingness to tackle urban dereliction - any sane system would impose heavy penalties on people sitting on crumbling urban properties, but we don’t - we just flatly refuse to enforce any of that due to regulatory capture.

A party that will realistically tackle that head on will get my vote and I don’t think that needs convoluted wealth taxes.

Holly Cairns - Twitter, girl power, boo men, abortion.

Stands for nothing substantial.

Left wing my a*se!

SF right wing on immigration?

I dont think so.

That was the main reason they lost a lot of support.

They maintained a left wing liberal approach to immigration, as you would expect from a socialist party.

That isn't what a lot of their voters wanted and they lost support because of it.